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Much research in cognitive psychology has focused on the tendency to conserve limited cognitive resources. The CRT is the predominant measure of such miserly information processing, and also predicts a number of frequently studied decision-making traits (such as belief bias and need for cognition). However, many subjects from common subject populations have already been exposed to the questions, which might add considerable noise to data. Moreover, the CRT has been shown to be confounded with numeracy. To increase the pool of available questions and to try to address numeracy confounds, we developed and tested the CRT-2. CRT-2 questions appear to rely less on numeracy than the original CRT but appear to measure closely related constructs in other respects. Crucially, substantially fewer subjects from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk have been previously exposed to CRT-2 questions. Though our primary purpose was investigating the CRT-2, we also found that belief bias questions appear suitable as an additional source of new items. Implications and remaining measurement challenges are discussed.

Introduction: Cognitive resources (cognitive reserve) are defined as the knowledge and skills acquired in the course of life which may delay the cognitive decline associated with age and defer, modify or retard the development of dementia. Cognitive reserve is the effect of education, physical and social activity and multiple other factors, both modifiable and non-modifiable. A more substantial cognitive reserve can play a protective role for executive processes and memory in the late stages of adulthood. Aim of the study: The aim of the study was to a) establish whether cognitive reserve determines the level of cognitive abilities in adults and b) determine the relationships between cognitive reserve, severity of depression and cognitive abilities. Material and methods: The study included 120 adult individuals. The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) subtests (Forward Digit Span, Backward Digit Span, Vocabulary), verbal fluency tests and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) were used to evaluate the subjects’ cognitive function. The level of cognitive reserve, severity of depression (Beck Depression Inventory-II, BDI-II) and health status (the presence of disease or lack thereof) were adopted as the determinants of cognitive ability. The result of a questionnaire concerning, among other aspects, the level of activity in different areas of life was treated as a cognitive reserve indicator. Conclusions: A higher level of cognitive reserve understood as a higher level of education, being professionally, physically and socially active, pursuing a hobby and having a sense of support, is conducive to better semantic memory, language abilities and general cognitive competence in adults. In addition, a more substantial cognitive reserve, lower severity of depression and the lack of vascular morbidity are conducive to better scores on cognitive tasks. Integrated action including cognitive reserve support, cardiovascular disease and mood management in adults/the elderly can have a protective effect on cognitive competence in late adulthood.

INTRODUCTION Little is known about whether the cognitive benefits of cognitive activities and resources differ across ethno‐racial groups in late‐life. METHODS Participants were 1702 non‐Latino White, 766 non‐Latino Black, and 324 Latino adults (≈ 76 years; N = 2792). Linear mixed‐effects models tested interaction by ethno‐racial group in the associations of lifespan (past and current) cognitive activity and total (past only) cognitive resources, respectively, with change in global cognition (GC) and five cognitive domains (≈ 8 ± 5 years). RESULTS Significant interactions were observed: higher lifespan cognitive activity predicted slower decline in GC (but not in domains) among non‐Latino White participants (estimate = 0.01, standard error [SE] = 0.01) and faster decline in GC (including working memory and perceptual speed domains) among Latino participants (estimate = −0.02, SE = 0.01); no association was observed among non‐Latino Black participants. Total cognitive resources did not predict cognitive decline. DISCUSSION Findings highlight ethno‐racial differences in the association between lifespan cognitive activity and decline in global cognition among older adults. Highlights Cognitive activity predicted slower cognitive decline in non‐Latino White adults. Cognitive activity predicted faster cognitive decline in Latino adults. Cognitive activity did not predict cognitive change in non‐Latino Black adults. Cognitive resources were not associated with cognitive decline in any group.

The vigilance decrement or decline in signal detection performance with time on task is one of the most reliable findings in the cognitive neuroscience and psychology literatures. The majority of theories proposed to explain the decrement are limited cognitive or attention resource based theories; the central nervous system is a limited capacity processor. The decrement in performance is then due to resource reallocation (or misallocation), resource depletion or some combination of both mechanisms. The role of resource depletion, in particular, is hotly debated. However, this may be due to a lack of understanding of the renewable nature of the vigilance resources and how this renewal process impacts performance during vigilance tasks. In the present paper, a simple quantitative model of vigilance resource depletion and renewal is described and shown to generate performance data similar to results seen in both humans and spiders. This model clarifies the role resource depletion and resource renewal may play in vigilance in both people and other animals.

Space and time mutually influence each other such that space affects time estimation (space-on-time effect), and conversely (time-on-space effect). These reciprocal interferences suggest that space and time are intrinsically linked in the human mind. Yet, recent evidence for an asymmetrical advantage for space over time challenges the classical theoretical interpretation. In the present study, we tested whether the superiority of space over time in magnitude interference depends on the cognitive resources engaged in the spatial task. We conducted three experiments in which participants performed judgments on temporal intervals and spatial distances in separate blocks. In each trial, two dots were successively flashed at various locations, and participants were to judge whether the duration or distance between the dots was short or long. To manipulate cognitive demands in the spatial task, distances varied across experiments (highly discriminable for the non-demanding spatial task in Experiment 1 and scarcely discriminable for the demanding spatial task in Experiment 2 ). Importantly, this manipulation tended to enhance perceptual sensitivity (as indexed by Weber Ratios) but slowed down the decision process (as indexed by response times) in the demanding experiment. Our results provide evidence for robust space-on-time and time-on-space effects (Experiments 1 and 2 ). More crucially, the involvement of cognitive resources in a demanding spatial task causes a massive time-on-space effect: Spatial judgments are indeed more influenced by irrelevant temporal information than the reverse (Experiments 2 and 3 ). Overall, the flexibility of spatiotemporal interferences has direct theoretical implications and questions the origins of space-time interaction.

Why do we sometimes opt for actions or items that we do not value the most? Under current neurocomputational theories, such preference reversals are typically interpreted in terms of errors that arise from the unreliable signaling of value to brain decision systems. But, an alternative explanation is that people may change their mind because they are reassessing the value of alternative options while pondering the decision. So, why do we carefully ponder some decisions, but not others? In this work, we derive a computational model of the metacognitive control of decisions or MCD. In brief, we assume that fast and automatic processes first provide initial (and largely uncertain) representations of options' values, yielding prior estimates of decision difficulty. These uncertain value representations are then refined by deploying cognitive (e.g., attentional, mnesic) resources, the allocation of which is controlled by an effort-confidence tradeoff. Importantly, the anticipated benefit of allocating resources varies in a decision-by-decision manner according to the prior estimate of decision difficulty. The ensuing MCD model predicts response time, subjective feeling of effort, choice confidence, changes of mind, as well as choice-induced preference change and certainty gain. We test these predictions in a systematic manner, using a dedicated behavioral paradigm. Our results provide a quantitative link between mental effort, choice confidence, and preference reversals, which could inform interpretations of related neuroimaging findings.

This study investigated whether the interference between two tasks in dual-task processing stems from bottleneck limitations or insufficient cognitive resources due to resource sharing. Experiment 1 used tone discrimination as Task 1 and word or pseudoword classification as Task 2 to evaluate the effect of automatic versus controlled processing on dual-task interference under different SOA conditions. Experiment 2 reversed the task order. The results showed that dual-task interference persisted regardless of task type or order. Neither experiment found evidence that automatic tasks could eliminate interference. This suggests that resource limitations, rather than bottlenecks, may better explain dual-task costs. Specifically, when tasks compete for limited resources, the processing efficiency of both tasks is significantly reduced. Future research should explore how cognitive resources are dynamically allocated between tasks to better account for dual-task interference effects.

First, we describe a psychological experiment in which the participants were asked to determine whether sentences of first-order logic were true or false in finite graphs. Second, we define two proof systems for reasoning about truth and falsity in first-order logic. These proof systems feature explicit models of cognitive resources such as declarative memory, procedural memory, working memory, and sensory memory. Third, we describe a computer program that is used to find the smallest proofs in the aforementioned proof systems when capacity limits are put on the cognitive resources. Finally, we investigate the correlation between a number of mathematical complexity measures defined on graphs and sentences and some psychological complexity measures that were recorded in the experiment.

We examined the influence of perceived cognitive fatigue on static balance control in healthy young adults to gain greater clarity about this issue than provided in previous research. Based on the prevailing assumption in pertinent literature, we hypothesized that the influence of cognitive fatigue on balance control depends on the attentional effort required by the balance tasks being performed. To test this hypothesis, 44 young adults (24 women and 20 men) were alternately assigned to either the experimental group that was cognitively fatigued (using the 16-min TloadDback-task with individualized settings) or the control group (who watched a documentary). Before and after the intervention, the participants performed six balance tasks that differed in (attentional) control requirements, while recording the center of pressure (COP). From these time series, sway variability, mean speed, and sample entropy were calculated and analyzed statistically. Additionally, perceived cognitive fatigue was assessed using VAS scales. Statistical analyses confirmed that the balance tasks differed in control characteristics and that cognitive fatigue was elevated in the experimental group, but not in the control group. Nevertheless, no significant main effects of cognitive fatigue were found on any of the COP measures of interest, except for some non-robust interaction effects related primarily to sample entropy. These results suggest that, in young adults, postural control in static balance tasks is largely automatic and unaffected by task-induced state fatigue.

The present study explored the resources reallocation explanation for memory biases in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), whereby a preferential allocation of cognitive resources to the processing of threatening stimuli could result in both improvements in their memorization and deficits for other types of information. To this end, 25 participants presenting significant symptoms of PTSD (i.e., total PCL-5 score ≥33) and 32 participants presenting low levels of symptoms (i.e., total PCL-5 score <20) took part in a Remember/Know recognition procedure associated with a dual-task encoding of positive, neutral, negative, and trauma-related words. In order to manipulate the availability of cognitive resources, the encoding of each word was associated with a simultaneous encoding of series of letters and numbers. Results replicated the increased production of Remember recognitions for trauma-related words in participants with significant PTSD symptoms. However, the dual-task load only impaired remember recognitions for non-trauma-related words. Contrary to expectations, these findings suggest that the encoding of trauma-related information in PTSD is relatively independent from the availability of cognitive resources. Thus, rather than reflecting an increased allocation of cognitive resources to the processing of threatening information, memory biases in PTSD appeared to be supported by an enhanced efficiency of their processing.